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May 09
DAVID BOWIE – “Let’s Dance”
One of the odd things about Bowie is how panicky he seems to get when he’s in fashion. The image of him as a “pop chameleon” is surely at least partly cover for a flight-reflex that kicks in when one of his stylistic changes really takes off. In the mid 70s, tasting superstardom on the back of his deviant glam image, he sidestepped into black US pop, making Young Americans and baffling his fans with “plastic soul”. Close to a decade on, and again the fountainhead of art-pop influence, he made exactly the same move, borrowing sounds and musicians from black pop to make a record that’s an exercise in knowing glossiness.
But something unexpected happened. Let’s Dance was massive: its smooth post-disco gestures fitting a current mood in pop, a retreat from frippery towards self-conscious sophistication, from pose to poise. It was to be the last time he matched pop’s moment so completely.
For all that “Let’s Dance” is an odd record. For a song about dancefloor erotics it’s harsh and heavy and everything about it seems half-petrified, the music a succession of freeze-frames. Bowie’s voice has an ancient, lizardly glide: there’s something as much vampiric as romantic about his invitations to dance and sway. I’ve often reached on Popular for the (rather hackneyed) idea that a record is easy to admire but difficult to love. “Let’s Dance” seems to be trying for this effect quite intentionally: it’s an impressively cold-blooded piece of work.
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Gabrielle Drake in Coronation Street last night! (important admin announcement there)
Really liked this when I was ten, still do now.
Two things about it that I can belatedly contribute. Everybody comments on the glossiness of this, but the other side of this gloss is a sense of galvanised hardness. Not just the enormo-drums, but that castanettey thing which (IIRC) acompanies a shot of a scorpion in the video, the appearance of Stevie Ray Vaughan and the separated and thumpy bassline. Its not a record that’s asking you to love it. This effect is accentuated by the lyrics raising of the idea of seriousness and blues, I think. And the idea of moonlight supports this chiaroscuro separation and hardness.
The other thing is that I much prefer this in the seven inch/radio edit. The full-length version just goes on – it never really starts to breathe and swing like Nile Rogers’ own extended songs.
Another thing I remember. Didn’t this song debut in the Billboard Top 40 American charts in the mid-20’s. It caught me by surprise, but at that moment I knew the song would at least go Top 5.
I think the success of this one owes a lot to relief. Bowie had really tested his audience in 82 with the avant-garde Baal’s Hymn and Alabama Song and then that awful Bing Crosby thing so his fans were grateful for something conventional to buy.
Unfortunately for them, after this his output dropped off the scale with Tonight, Never Let Me Down and the godawful Tin Machine. It’s difficult to think of any other artist whose quality has slipped so precipitously.
MikeMCSG @ 129: I’d hesitate to call Bowie’s version of the Alabama Song particularly avant-garde, even if it is my least favourite of the four versions at my fingertips (the others being by Ute Lemper, Robyn Archer and The Doors). It’s no more avant-garde than Lotte Lenya doing it in 1930, let alone any of the above.
Rosie 129 # It is a relatively straight version I agree but in a chart context the song itself is avant-garde material. None of the other versions you mention were hit singles.
I may already have said this, but I recall that at the time people thought Let’s Dance was a sign that Bowie had run out of ideas and was just aping other people, while now it sounds weird and unlike anything else of the time.
There’s an exhaustive and exemplary analysis of this song (including a quote from the thread above) at the Bowie blog, here:
http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/lets-dance/
Nile Rodgers talks us through Let’s Dance’s guitar part, alternatives that were discarded, and so on, here. Highly highly recommended.
Video of the rest Rodgers’s seminar onstage in Manchester (Zion center) last week is available too. Yay youtube.
I could listen to him talk and strum all day, that’s magnificent.
Chic did Let’s Dance at Lovebox 2012 in London over the weekend. Good Times even better as one would expect. I’m *very* envious of anyone who got to go to this!
I was there, Swanstep! It was brilliant. Nile Rodgers is quite the man.
@137, Pearly S. Good for you, you lucky lucky person. Nile R. is the dude alright, and looking at his twitter feed and blog he’s evidently been very pleased with the shows and is generally himself having a ball (nobody has more friends than Nile). Obviously his health remains a little precarious so this summer’s tour shouldn’t be taken for granted by anyone.
A great man indeed. He single-handedly justified the existence of Twitter with this one:
@nilerodgers: A journalist asked me, “How do you prepare for a CHIC show?” I said, “I call the girls and ask, ‘What are we wearing?'”
[…] Albummet får faktisk glimrende anmeldelser – se bare her i Rolling Stone. Se også denne korte og præcise retrospektive anmeldelse (fra 2009) i Freaky Trigger. […]
Er der noget råddent i staten Danmark?
Nice one, Rosie!
TPL on the album. Just couldn’t get into it, though I tried…I tried: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/david-bowie-lets-dance.html
Critic watch:
1,001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, and 10,001 You Must Download (2010) 1-1001
Bruce Pollock (USA) – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000 (2005)
Life (USA) – 40 Years of Rock & Roll, 5 Songs for Each Year 1952-91 (Updated 1995)
Slant (USA) – The 100 Best Singles of the 1980s (2012) 51
Treble (USA) – The Top 200 Songs of the 80s (2011) 72
Woxy.com (USA) – Modern Rock 500 Songs of All Time (combined rank 1989-2009) 469
Mojo (UK) – Top 30 David Bowie Songs (2003) 12
Q (UK) – The 80 Best Records of the 80s (2006) 21
Sounds (UK) – The 100 Best Singles of All Time (1986) 74
The Guardian (UK) – 1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear (2009)
Gilles Verlant and Thomas Caussé (France) – 3000 Rock Classics (2009)
Giannis Petridis (Greece) – 2004 of the Best Songs of the Century (2003)
Village Voice (USA) – Singles of the Year 14
Face (UK) – Singles of the Year
New Musical Express (UK) – Singles of the Year 21